“The Unbearable Lightness of Being” by Milan Kundera (post 2): Does a guardian alternate personality take over when Tereza’s host personality sleeps?

“…they both looked forward to sleeping together. I might even say that the goal of their lovemaking was not so much pleasure as the sleep that followed it…Whenever she [Tereza] stayed [by herself] overnight in her rented room…, she was unable to fall asleep; in his [Tomas’s] arms [at his home] she would fall asleep no matter how wrought up she might have been…

“While they slept, she held him…, keeping a firm grip on [his] wrist, finger, or ankle…she guarded him carefully even in her sleep…

“Once, when he had just lulled her to sleep but she had gone no farther than dream’s antechamber and was therefore still responsive to him, he said to her, ‘Good-bye, I’m going now,’ ‘Where?’ she asked in her sleep. ‘Away,’ he answered sternly. ‘Then I’m going with you,’ she said, sitting up in bed. ‘No, you can’t. I’m going away for good,’ he said, going out into the hall. She stood up and followed him out, squinting…Her face was blank, expressionless, but she moved energetically…She [was] convinced in her sleep that he meant to leave her for good and she had to stop him. He walked down the stairs to the first landing and waited for her there. She went down after him, took him by the hand, and led him back to bed” (1, pp. 14-15).

1. Milan Kundera. The Unbearable Lightness of Being [1984]. Translated from the Czech by Michael Henry Heim. New York, Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2009.